A Tout le Monde

For many years, he was there.  He was part of my collective.  He was part of my life.  He was my little brother.  He was my best friends first love.  He was a fellow autism parent.  He was kind.  He was sensitive.  He was my friend.  

I'm struggling with so many feelings surrounding his passing.  I'm full of so many words that feel so hollow and so much silence that feels so solid.  

Some people are angry with him for ending his life the way he did.  He left his son to walk this world without him.  He left his father to grieve his remaining days for another child that he outlived.  He left his friends to mourn a deeply loved person who was there one minute and gone the next.  On his way out, he left a painful goodbye on Facebook.  His agonized final words forever immortalized in those black and white letters.  

Steve was one of the people who shaped me into being me.  He influenced me.  His essence is a part of who I am.  His fingerprint is on my life.  They say that you should choose your friends wisely because you become most like those you have around you.  And I chose them well.  So many years of sitting in my bedroom, listening to music, inventing games, sharing pain, sharing laughs, sharing silence, sharing parts of books, poetry, drinks, joints, sharing who we were.  Every memory contains a part of him.  He was there for everything.  He was there every day until I divorced my first husband when I was 21.  Almost every single day from the time I was 15 until I was 21 - Steve was a staple of my every day.  Of course, we saw each other here and there since then.  We live in the same city.  We interacted on social media.  We talked about our sons' autism and the struggles.  We mourned the loss of each one of our fallen brothers together.   Our last conversation was discussing his appreciation for life after some near death experiences and the passing of other dear ones.  I didn't know that the last thing I would ever say to him would be that I was glad that he was alive.  

Some people are struggling with why he ended his life the way he did.  He walked out to the garage and in one trigger pull, he was gone.  I hid in that very garage once when I was dealing with parents who just didn't understand.  Why did he do it?  What set him off?  What drove him to that point?  What pushed him?  

Having known Steve for as long as I have in the way that I did - I'm neither angry or curious.  Because, I understand.  I almost was Steve.  I'm just sad.  There isn't a word powerful enough to express it.  I'm just sad.  And I feel guilty.  I know that anguish.  I almost put my family through it.  Knowing how this feels - to be on the other side of suicide - I'm so sorry that I ever, ever, ever even contemplated it for a second.  I feel so tremendously awful for considering doing this to my loved ones.  I feel selfish for feeling that way when my focus should be him.

But I feel so guilty that I wasn't able to do something to help Steve.  How can I call myself a friend?  I didn't know that it was this bad for him.  But I did, in a way.  I was not surprised.  Because, deep down, I knew.  After all, I knew that Steve was always sad.  He always struggled.  He had many moments of happiness when we were kids.  But, he was not ever the kind of person that would outwardly express much of what he was feeling.  He felt so much.  He felt everything.  It was like a radio on full blast for him all the time.  He couldn't shut off the sounds.  He could just go numb to it every now and then.  We just accepted that he wasn't the type to smile much.  We all met when we were going through the worst of the worst so we just kind of held each other together.  It is because we were all there together that we all made it as far as we did.  

I also just get it.  I have been so low that nothing else mattered.  I have felt that weight.  Part of me wishes that the part of my soul that understands could hug the part of his soul that was so tortured - just to say goodbye.  As much as it hurts me that he is gone - I completely just understand.  Some pain is just so insurmountable.  Some coping mechanisms just lose their potency over time.  Sometimes, your soul just grows so weary that you can't take another day.  Sometimes, the drugs aren't strong enough.  Sometimes, the volume is just too loud.  Sometimes the treble is so high your ears bleed.  Sometimes, the bass is so deep that it rattles your insides.  Sometimes, the balance is just too far away.  Suicide is not weakness.  Suicide is being strong for so long that your knees give.  There's a reason that holding up the heavens was a punishment for Atlas.  No one volunteers to carry that burden.

I just wish there was some way that I could have helped lighten the load.  Even for just a minute.  

Smells Like Teen Spirit

I can honestly say that 1993 was one of the best years of my life.  I was adopted into my unique, marijuana-addled chosen family.  This little family is where I came to discover unconditional love, uninhibited weirdness, stun guns, bongs, what an Astro van can do down a highway, how many people can fit into said Astro Van (18, by the way), Pantera, Marilyn Manson, LSD, euphemisms for masturbation, Fargunglehaas, poetry, deep thinking, sex, every flavor of Mad Dog 20/20, crowd surfing, higher plane innocence, brotherly love, sisterly bonds, and The Anarchist's Cookbook.

Ron, Kaiser, Bailey, Forgy, Cordell, Ted, Bill, Steve, and Jess - this motley crew became my inner circle that year.  It was Ted who would break the news to me of Kurt Cobain's death after a day of skipping school to get high.  Cordell would be my first love and baby daddy (though, the baby didn't make it beyond the beginning of the second trimester).  Forgy would become my brother and live with me and my family.  He left this world a few years back. To this day, Jess is still my best friend, my heterosexual life partner.  More people would flux in and out of our little collection - a few Jason's, a Jeremy, a Jeromy (passed in 2013), a Mark (stolen by cancer when he was 15), some Scotts, a Jared, a Matheny, a Ryan.  Then, a James, who would become my first husband.  The core of us tended to stick together, like thieves.

If there was something illegal or absurd to get into - we'd find it.  One time, Kaiser stuck his head out of the window of Ron's van while we were driving and his glasses flew off into Forgy's yard by accident.  Another time, Ryan got so drunk that he passed out under my Blazer in Bailey's front yard and we got a dolly and carted him into the house, shot him off of the dolly onto the floor at the base of the toilet, threw some crackers at him and advised him not to die.   One time, some skeezy bastard who outweighed me by about 150 pounds tried to rape me at a party and Jason K crashed the door down - not intentionally to save me - thinking it was the bathroom, so that he could vomit all over the floor.    There was the time that the guys had no weed nor money to purchase it so they captured a moth that was happily dancing in the light while we listened to Cake and Sodomy and then put it into a six foot gravity bong and smoked it.  Ryan passed away last year. Jason passed several days after Ryan.

One of the best memories ever was the Works bomb.  There was this horrendous pit of spiders that was in Ron's back yard.  (Ron had this amazing Star Wars mural in his bedroom spanning all 4 walls) The spiders would come in and bite Ron in his sleep.  In a moment of bored sobriety, the guys decided that they were going to do something about it.  They had a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook and decided to put it to good use.  They'd build this Work's Bomb and blow the shit out of those fucking spiders, once and for all.  I, of course, had no part of this.  I merely observed in terrified amusement.  I watched as they created the thing in a Mountain Dew Bottle.  They mustered up the balls and headed into the back yard and I stayed in the house.  I waited in Ron's room, watching the small, rectangular window that was so high that it almost touched the ceiling.  I could hear their laughter from the other side of the brick.  I could hear them philosophize over the enormity of the pit and it's various species of arachnids.  They almost sounded intrigued.  Then Steve says "Let's blow those little fuckers up, man".  I could hear them strategize.  Then, a noise so loud that my ears rang.  The window went black.  Then silence.  That's when I decided that rather than be the one picking up chunks of my friends from the grass or wrestle limbs from the dog's jaws - I'd just leave now.  I took off out of the front door and headed towards my Blazer.  I got in and started the engine.

Then, one by one, my friends made their way to the front lawn.

Screaming.

Beating themselves.

Screaming.

Crying.

And screaming.

They were covered in spiders.

I locked my doors.

They ran to my car, begging me for help.

Steve, with his puppy dog brown eyes and his stringy, blonde hair peppered with spiders of all sizes, pressed his baby face against my window and asked me to kill him.  Saying "I've seen hell".  Then they started smacking each other.  They eventually moved on to the "Stop, Drop, and Roll" technique that was the most successful.

This will remain in my heart as one of my all time favorite moments in history.

Last night, Steve took his own life.

I have found it difficult to throttle my tears.  This was my inner circle.  He was the youngest of us all.  And by far, the most sensitive.  He was beautiful and quiet.  And I'll never see him again.

We think that the hardest part of aging is the crow's feet at our eyes or decreased elasticity of our skin.  Sometimes, I find myself picking apart my maturing body and start to feel like it's all flying by so fast.

The actual hardest part of getting older is all the goodbyes that we aren't ready for.

Rest peacefully, Sven.